Road Back Has Potholes for Once-Idyllic Laguna Street : Recovery: A few plan to rebuild on fire-ravaged Buena Vista Way, but landslide fears, rancor and time take a toll.

The sun slipped slowly into the Pacific as a loose knot of people stood in the middle of their desolate street last week, ticking off the names of the neighbors who once lived among them.

The Carys? one asked. Gone. The Williamsons? History. Jim and Rob? Gone too. And so was Joe, who had decided a month or so back not to rebuild.

“It’s just terrible,” lamented Jackie Allen, standing on Buena Vista Way with her husband, Jim, and neighbor Thomas Homan. “Here we thought we’d have a real coming together after the fire, and I wanted to have this block party when we all got back in. But there won’t be anybody left on the street to come to my party.”

Five months after the October firestorm incinerated nine houses along this narrow, winding street, nearly half of those who lost homes here have chosen not to return. Their decisions to build or buy elsewhere ensure what once seemed only a disturbing possibility: in the wake of the fire, this one-block street on a hillside commanding a sweeping ocean view will never be the same.

With the departure of at least four of the nine homeowners whose dwellings were destroyed by the wildfire--including Don and Jo Williamson, who had lived here for 37 years--the scope of the fire’s impact on Buena Vista Way has struck home as never before.

“It’s heartbreaking to see the neighbors go,” said Sheila Patterson, who is planning to rebuild. “I really liked these people. I liked the age mix, I liked the different interests. I can’t believe they’re all going.”

On a street where residents had long lived in contented isolation from one another, the wildfire had brought them together, forging new relationships as they struggled to rebound from the disaster.

Now, for many, that newfound spirit of community will be dashed before it can develop.

“It just breaks my heart,” Jackie Allen said. “Our street is just falling apart.”

The departures spell other changes for Buena Vista. Several of those who remain said they wonder whether the other lots, still dotted with blackened trees, may lie empty for a while. And they worry that their own property values may be affected.

The homeowners’ reasons for leaving vary, ranging from a reluctance to endure the inevitable headaches of rebuilding to concerns about reports that geologists have found possible signs of an ancient landslide under some lots in the area.

Laguna Beach City Manager Kenneth C. Frank said last week that the city has not received any written reports about the possibility of geological problems in the Buena Vista or Temple Hills area, although he said residents raised the issue at a recent City Council meeting.

“There are rumors of ancient landslides all over the city,” Frank said. Even so, the percentage of Buena Vista residents who have chosen not to rebuild appears to be high when compared with the rest of the city, he added.

The rumors have intensified since the council’s controversial decision two weeks ago to delay rebuilding for some property owners in the nearby Mystic Hills neighborhood while geologists try to determine whether an ancient slide lies beneath a number of lots there.

Frank said he did not doubt that geologists may have found such evidence under Buena Vista Way, but said the city could take no action without written reports.

The Williamsons decided they can not wait, either for geologists to complete their tests or for the city to act. Based on preliminary advice from a geologist, Don, 80, and Jo, 78, made the wrenching decision to move from the neighborhood where they have lived for many years.

“Both of us feel a little like traitors to the street,” admitted Don Williamson, standing on the lush new lot the couple has purchased in Bluebird Canyon. “We loved that area. I just have a very good feeling about this, though.”

The Williamsons’ geologist, Fred Pratley, told them he had located disturbing, if preliminary, signs that an ancient slide might at least delay their plans to rebuild on Buena Vista, they said. The city requires geological studies before it will issue building permits. “We don’t have that much time,” said Jo Williamson, who held her husband’s hand tightly as she walked slowly across the uneven ground of their new lot.

“I don’t blame the city and I don’t blame the geologists,” said her husband, an architect who already has designed their new house. “Jo and I, though, are at the age where we don’t care to wait around.”

Pratley, of Coastal Geotechnical of Laguna Beach, could not be reached for comment last week. But Allen Bell, another geologist working in the area, confirmed that his firm and others have found preliminary evidence that an ancient landslide may exist in the area. He stressed that the tests are incomplete.

Bell, president of Petra Geotechnical of Costa Mesa, was reluctant to discuss specifics of the early findings, but said geologists and city officials are planning to meet soon, possibly this week, to decide on a course of action.

He also emphasized that even if a slide is shown to exist under parts of Buena Vista and the street below, Temple Hills Drive, it does not necessarily mean that homes cannot be rebuilt in the area.

“My advice (to residents) would be to stay calm and let the process work its way through,” Bell said. “We’re hopeful that it can be resolved without undue problems.”

A third company, Geofirm, which also consults for the city, found no problems in the studies it conducted for two residents of Buena Vista.

But one year ago, just after a small landslide buckled the street, forcing the condemnation of two houses and the evacuation of two others, the company’s geologists warned city officials that they believed an ancient landslide might exist in the area, said Hannes Richter, a geotechnical engineer and one of the company’s principals.

The cause of last year’s landslide has not yet been determined and is the focus of litigation among some of the neighbors.

While Geofirm’s own borings at that time did not locate a problem, Richter said, other data, including aerial photographs and information shared by other geologists, led the firm to suspect the existence of an ancient slide.

The Buena Vista residents, several of whom learned only last week about the potential problems, said they could not help but worry about the possible impact on their hopes to rebuild their homes and neighborhood.

“The first consequence is that everybody’s ultimate dreams have been put on hold,” said Christian Werner, who has lived on Buena Vista for 22 years and hopes to rebuild there. “The situation is somewhat unraveling.”

Some families are going forward with rebuilding plans, however. The Allens are proceeding, armed with a geological report that will allow them to rebuild. So is Patterson. George Cary and Marlene Wright, who lived with their young daughter next door to the Allens, are not rebuilding, but said their decision had to do with their desire to provide a better play area for their daughter, Christina. Geologists with Geofirm have approved the lot for building, Cary said.

He said he and his wife reached a settlement recently with their insurance company, which allowed them to look around at other property. They decided to buy a much larger, flatter lot at the top of a hillside across Park Avenue, he said.

“Since we were starting from scratch anyway, we felt we might as well see what the other opportunities were,” Cary said. They have not yet decided whether to sell their Buena Vista property.

Thomas Homan, who has lived on the street since 1985, is among those planning to rebuild. In fact, the architectural plans for his new house are complete, he said, with a design review hearing set for later this month. Homan has not yet arranged for a geological study of his property but said he would do so quickly.

Meanwhile, Homan and the Allens met on the street between their devastated lots one evening last week and tried to console themselves over the loss of so many neighbors. Laughing and lamenting by turns, the three joked about their new status as members of a dwindling group pushing ahead with rebuilding.

“It’s like the 10 little Indians,” said Jim Allen, assuming an ominous tone. “ ‘There were nine and then there were four.’ ”

Homan grinned. “Hey, sooner or later, God willing, all these lots will sell and nice people will move in and we’ll be back in business, right?” he said, waving his arm down the barren street. “Then we’ll just have to break them in.”

Loretta Edger, whose primary residence is in Illinois but who owned a house between Christian Werner and the Williamsons, said she is planning to rebuild “at this point.” She said she worries, though, about the time commitment involved.

“If I could just have my old house back, the way it was before the fire, I wouldn’t have any question about it at all,” she said. “But I don’t know.”

Two other households will not rebuild.

Joseph Becker, who spent almost $300,000 in 1991 remodeling his house, put his lot up for sale in February. Becker, who had rented the house to a series of tenants since the remodeling, said he was not interested in going through the construction process again.

And James Kelly and Robert Mangel, who had lived on the street for five years and whose Spanish-style house was the last to burn, decided to buy an existing, oceanfront home in Laguna’s Woods Cove.

Kelly said their reasons included fears that previous troubles with one neighbor might only be exacerbated by the rebuilding process.

Mainly, though, “we just decided we wanted to get on with our lives,” Kelly said.

“I’m sad for the street,” Kelly added, speaking fondly of such neighbors as Julie Ireland, 74, whose home a couple doors down survived the fire, and the Williamsons, whose earlier plans to rebuild their Buena Vista house had represented “the hope of the street.”

“I just thought it was so great, these 80-year-olds going forward with rebuilding there,” Kelly said. “I’ll really miss them, but I’m so glad they’re rebuilding elsewhere.”

The Williamsons, whose giant, charred oak tree has become a symbol for residents of the street’s rebirth since it sprouted leaves a few weeks ago, said that they have mixed feelings about their decision.

But mainly, they said, they found themselves relieved when they closed escrow on the new lot--ironically, on the same day their plans for rebuilding on Buena Vista were approved by the city, pending the geological report.

In light of last year’s landslide, which forced them to evacuate their home, then the fire and lately, the geological worries, “the vibrations just seemed bad,” said Don Williamson.

But the couple has no plans to sell the lot, at least for now. In fact, they said, their son, who has always loved the property, may one day want to build on Buena Vista.